The adoption of inventory postponement and speculation: An empirical assessment of oligopolistic Internet retailers

Unlike traditional retailers, which use inventory speculation for all their merchandise, Internet book retailers selectively use inventory postponement for specific merchandise items to lower their inventory costs. We develop and test hypotheses that describe merchandise determinants of inventory postponement and speculation at two oligopolistic retailers: Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. We find that merchandise popularity raises both firms’ likelihood of inventory speculation. Furthermore, merchandise vintage affects negatively both firms’ likelihood of inventory speculation. Merchandise price affects negatively the likelihood of inventory speculation for Amazon.com and positively for Barnesandnoble.com. This may be due to conditions within Barnesandnoble.com, which operates physical and Internet channels.